Walking through his neighborhood in the Port Monmouth section of Middletown, Nick Kakalecz rattles off what happened to each of his neighbors after the storm waters of last October drove them from their homes.

One, a schoolteacher, had a baby and now lives with her mother.

The guy who lived next door now resides in Eatontown. And next to that house there used to be a structure standing. Today, it’s an empty lot.

That owner tore down the house and plans to put a modular one in its place.

A year after the storm, the scenario has been repeated in neighborhood after neighborhood, town after town, along the Jersey Shore and in dozens of other communities devastated by Hurricane Sandy: many residents still have not been able to return to the places they called home.

And according to a poll released yesterday, many believe it will take another year or longer before life returns to some sense of normalcy.

"It’s still unbelievable. It’s a year later and we’re still walking into this mess," said Joanne Gwin from the shell of her Toms River home in what was once her living room.

A year after Sandy, it is unclear how many residents are still displaced from the largest storm to ever hit the state. But a survey of mayors along the shore shows the numbers are in the thousands.

In Brick and Toms River alone, two towns hard hit by coastal and back bay flooding, the number of displaced residents could be more than a couple thousand, according to estimates from the mayors of those towns.

Nick Kakalecz, 59, stands in the rubble that was his son Michael's home on Main Street in the the Port Monmouth section of Middletown. Other than looters breaking in to steal all the copper pipes from the walls, the home remains as it did when Sandy hit almost a year ago. Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger

In Union Beach, about 500 out of 2,336 houses are still empty.

Mayor Paul Smith said he knew in the immediate aftermath of the storm last year that recovery was going to take a long time.

"Some people aren’t going to be able to rebuild or can’t afford to rebuild," he said.

The story is similar in Highlands, where borough administrator Tim Hill said there are at least 300 displaced families, including 65 from the mobile home park that won’t be rebuilt. Thirty-one houses have been demolished and another 50 to 60 have yet to be, he said.

"Long term, with demolitions and the trailer park, these families are going to be displaced for quite a while longer," Hill said.

Mayor Dina Long of Sea Bright, which still has about 500 displaced residents, said money remains the key to getting everyone back.

"Those who did not have access to funds are not home yet," said Long, who also is displaced from her home.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has paid out more than $180 million so far in rental assistance for displaced New Jersey residents, according to agency spokesman Alberto Pillot. In the past year, they have helped more than 40,000 families, he said. Fifty families are living in FEMA trailers and another 71 families remain in apartments at Fort Monmouth, Pillot said.

The number of displaced residents cited by mayors may be conservative considering the devastation caused by the storm.

Hurricane Sandy, the second costliest storm in U.S. history — behind only 2005’s Hurricane Katrina — damaged or destroyed 365,000 homes in New Jersey.

Ocean County planning director David McKeon said there’s "a large number of people" who are unaccounted for right now because they are just not registered with any government entity. Those may be families staying with friends or family and not receiving federal help, as well as individuals who have their own resources and decided not to seek assistance.

"We know they are out there, but we just don’t have a number," he said. "It’s hard to keep track."

Kate Vossen, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross, said several factors contributed to the housing problem left in Sandy’s wake. Geographically, the storm struck the most densely populated area in the country. Many homeowners had tenuous connections to their homes because of the economic downturn, and others are trying to stay in the area where their children go to school — but Sandy created housing shortages in those communities, she said.

Steve and Joanne Gwin, who, a year after Sandy, are still not back in their home, which is located in the Silverton section of Toms River Township. The Gwins say the house must be razed.Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger

At the same time, she said, Sandy was "such an unprecedented storm. I don’t think anyone had any expectations" about the extent of damage.

It’s a frustration that some blame on New Jersey officials. More than 60 percent of those displaced by the storm are dissatisfied with the state’s recovery efforts, according to a new Monmouth University poll released yesterday. Three-quarters of those surveyed felt they had been largely forgotten in the Sandy rebuilding efforts.

The poll, funded through a grant from the New Jersey Recovery Fund, found only 18 percent of the people surveyed were back in their homes.

Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, which is conducting the ongoing study, said local governments were viewed as being the most responsive. Far fewer gave high marks to the state or counties in which they live.

"Insurance providers get generally satisfactory, although not stellar, grades from New Jersey residents who were hardest hit by Sandy," he said.

Steve and Joanne Gwin, who rent an apartment in Lakewood while their Toms River house sits moldy and gutted, never imagined they would be waiting this long to go back home.

Joanne Gwin said it’s been a year of paperwork and waiting. It’s been a year of filling out insurance forms and appeals, bank applications for help with their mortgage and applications to the state Department of Community Affairs for help to rebuild and elevate their home, which has to be demolished.

"It’s the story that never ends," said Gwin, who is not receiving any federal aid. "It’s ‘Groundhog Day.’ It’s the same day over and over again."

WHERE THE MONEY’S GOING

This information was released Monday by the state of New Jersey.

$5.67B — Total federal assistance to New Jersey$226M — Sandy Supplemental Social Services Block Grant funds to help the most vulnerable recover$16.1M — Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund grants awarded to 81 organizations1.6M — Pounds of food distributed after the storm261,000 — People who contacted FEMA for help or information29,000 — Households that have received or are in the process of receiving Sandy assistance4,100 — Homeowners initially approved for the Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation Program 548 — FEMA specialists on the ground within 48 hours of the storm507 — Voluntary agencies involved in the recovery

Before Sandy, the couple hoped to pay off their mortgage in 15 years so they could retire, but Steve, a manufacturing supervisor, and Joanne, an Air Force training coordinator, said that plan is out the window. Before the storm, their house — not including the land — was worth $142,000, he said. Now, they say, it’s worth $13,000.

In the meantime, they pay the mortgage and taxes on their house, their homeowners and flood insurance premiums, rent, payments on two cars that replaced the ones lost in the storm, and fees to store furniture they salvaged.

Dorothy Rand lives at Fort Monmouth. She moved to a furnished apartment there in February after getting sick in her moldy house in the Beach Haven West section of Stafford.

Like the Gwins, she has applied for the state’s Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation grant, which will give up to $150,000 in federal funds to homeowners who need to repair or elevate their homes. It’s a slow, time-consuming and complicated process that’s left the most of the more than 3,000 approved participants wondering when work will actually start.

The little money Rand said she received from her flood insurance claim won’t cover the damage. She said she needs $60,000 for repairs, including replacing the plumbing in the lagoon-front bungalow she bought 45 years ago.

"I want more than anything to have that house fixed," said Rand, a 79-year-old retired airline employee. "I’m shocked that it would take so long and I still don’t know how much longer it’s going to take."

For Kakalecz, 59, who works at an auto parts store and in maintenance at a school, moving back to the Port Monmouth home he and his wife have owned for nearly 30 years is not an option. He doesn’t have enough for repairs. And, his wife, Gail, won’t go back because she fears future storms, he said.

With rental assistance from FEMA, they’ve been living in an Ocean Township apartment with their 23-year-old daughter.

"I don’t know what to do anymore. Just give up?’ Kakalecz said. "There was nothing in the house we could save. Memories. We don’t have anything left."